LETTERS OF APRIL 4

Janus case shows splits in the ruling class
On February 24, I joined several thousand workers at Foley Square in NYC to protest the attack on unions represented by the Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court case, which is expected to end the collection of “agency fees,” the money non-members pay to unions to represent them in bargaining and contract enforcement. This is part of a decades-long project to weaken unions through “right-to-work” laws and other obstacles to union representation. The targets in the Janus case are public sector unions, because 34.4 percent of government employees are unionized, compared to only 6.5 percent in the private sector. Right-wing billionaires like the Koch brothers, the Walton and Coors families, and Richard Uihlein are paying the legal expenses of the Janus plaintiffs. The capitalists want to:
1. Weaken public unions in order to reduce wages, benefits and job protections of members. The median earnings for a two-income, non-union family are currently $400 a week less than that of a union family. Reducing the pay, health benefits and pensions of government workers is part of a larger plan to reduce taxes on corporations and the very rich.
2. Reduce the influence of public unions in lobbying for more money for education, health care and other social services.
Two days later, I traveled with members of my union to demonstrate on the steps of the Supreme Court. Hundreds of unionists from AFSCME, SEIU, TWU, CWA, AFT and NEA chanted  “The Workers United Will Never Be Defeated,” drowning out the small group of college Republicans and Heritage Foundation staff who chanted “Stand With Mark” (Mark Janus is the right-wing worker whose name is on the suit). The pro-Janus crowd was almost all-white, while our group was multiracial. It’s significant since Black workers are 30 percent more likely than whites to have a public sector job. So the Janus attack on public unions is also racist.
Everyone in our union group realized that our rally was too little, too late. For months, the leaders of the major public unions failed to mobilize their members for militant action. Many unions didn’t even organize members to come to the last-minute rallies. What if millions of public workers had walked off the job like the West Virginia teachers did? Then the conversation at the Supreme Court would have been a little different.
A section of the U.S. bosses want to cripple the labor unions. This has been their aim for decades. The Koch family helped form the Tea Party. In 1955, Koch was one of the founders of the National Right to Work Committee, one of the anti-labor organizations bringing the current Janus suit.
Other capitalists worry that crippling unions will make it harder for labor leaders to maintain “labor peace” and persuade their member to accept “no-strike pledges.” The AFSCME lawyer presenting the anti-Janus argument at the Supreme Court was explicit: “Union security is the tradeoff for no strikes. And so if you were to override Abood, you can raise an untold specter of labor unrest throughout the country.”
The New York Times, and capitalists like Warren Buffet, are worried that weakened public unions will be less able to support the Democratic Party, which derails social protest and rebellion by offering false hope that capitalism can be reformed. Beneath this is their worry that millions of workers could reject capitalism and embrace communist leaders, who led many of the unions in the past.
These rulers are worried not only about the “specter of labor unrest,” but about the “specter of communism” that continues to haunt them 170 years after Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto. As communists, we are active in unions because we know Marx was right, that workers’ revolution offers us the only viable future.
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The Supreme Court is not your friend
Most working class youth are lied to and taught that the court is a fair part of the state apparatus—the government of the capitalist class—unlike squabbling congress, filled with bought-and-sold sleazy politicians, or a presidency occupied by a racist fool. We are told that the court rises above both the legislative and executive branches as the judge of both.
Beneath the veneer of impartiality, the Supreme Court historically and consistently serves the interest of the capitalists who own all the means of producing economic value. The function of the Supreme Court is to adjudicate important disputes about the set of rules that guarantee capitalist class control over both the economy and government. Some of those disputes are between different wings or different policies competing for dominance within the ruling class; others are disputes between capitalists and workers.
The history of the Supreme Court is one of protecting the interests of the wealthy owners. That was clear in 1857, when the Court protected the interests of wealthy slave owners in the Dred Scott case, when it ruled that any of the four million slaves brought to a “free state” (one that had abolished slavery) remained the property of his or her owner. In the 2010 Citizens United case, the court ruled that corporations could not be limited in how much money they donated to political campaigns, making it even easier for billionaires to maintain control over who’s elected to congress and for the presidency.
All of the current Supreme Court Justices are graduates of law schools at Harvard, Yale or Columbia, universities that have trained generations of executives of major U.S. corporations and leading members of the U.S. political class. Before being named to the court, most of the Justices served as corporate lawyers and are naturally friendly to business. The Roberts Court (named after Chief Justice John Roberts) deepens this tradition. A study published in the Minnesota Law Review that rigorously examined 2,000 decisions found the court to be “far friendlier to business than those of any court since at least World War II.”
In the Janus v. AFSCME case, the Court is poised to hand a victory to the wing led by the Koch Brothers and the Walton Family. They would prefer to see unions demolished, as opposed to the Rockefellers, Morgans and other families, who would keep unions in their tame and controlled state.
Whatever the decision in Janus, it’s important for workers to realize how all three branches of government are used against us.
It is we, the workers of the whole world, who will hold the key to which class rules. We have nothing to lose but our chains, and the majesty of the Supreme Courts of the world will go the way of the divine right of kings when workers led by the communist PLP break the chains of the wage and profit system!